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ADVANCE HEALTHCARE DIRECTIVE
(A) Advance health directive including Power of Attorney for Health Care Decisions and wishes of Tito Mathson (Male, Date of Birth - 9th July 1949)residing at ......
(B) To my family, My Physician (any qualified Medical Doctor attending to me at any given time), My Clergyman ( The Priest of Mar Thoma Church Prim Rose Road, Bangalore 560001 and /or Immanuel Mar Thoma Church, Eraviperoor, Tiruvalla Taluk, Keralam, India; and my Lawyer Mr. S. Nagraj, Bangalore, India.
(C) This Directive is written and signed by me on 20thth of November 2010 in the presence of two witnesses, who are not in any way beneficiaries of any of my assets ( both movable and immovable), and I am doing so in full command of my faculties and consciousness. Original of this document, has been given to my wife Mariam Mathson. The following people have been given one copy each of the same: (1) Mathson ( my brother), (2) Mrs. Abraham ( my sister), (3) Ms. Mathson ( my elder daughter), (4) Ms Mathson ( my younger daughter) as well as the TWO witnesses who have signed this document below.
(D) Statement of Desires :
If I become incapable of giving informed consent regarding my healthcare decision and if I develop any incurable or progressive, degenerative or terminal disease and no cure is available, and treatment if any, may only prolong the dying process, I request that my Physicians and other healthcare providers follow this directions below.
Accordingly I wish that following be adhered to:-
(1) Caring and supportive nursing and medical care to relieve pain and suffering including narcotics to relieve pain and suffering even if respiration is depressed and even if my death is hastened by such medication.
(2) Food and fluids to be offered, but not forced upon me as long as I am conscious to take them by mouth, by my own command.
(3) Pacemaker or any device that substitutes for normal heart-beat :– Not to be applied on me.
(4) Respirator / Ventilator :– Not to be applied on me.
(5) Cardio-pulmonary Respirator ( CPR) or Intervention given by Man, Machine or Drugs :– Not to be applied on me.
(6) Feeding by Tube ( Tube placed in to the stomach or bowel) to give fluid / nutrition :– Not be applied on me.
(7) Intravenous Tube for feeding or hydration :– Not be be given to me.
(8) Antibiotics to treat Pneumonia or other infections :– Not to be given to me.
(9) Cancer Therapy ( Radiation / Chemotherapy ) – Not to be given tome.
(10) Blood Transfusion :– Not to be given to me.
(11) Diagnostic procedures or Tests or further tests to monitor my failing condition :– Not to be done / applied to me.
(12) Surgery :- Not to be done on me.
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(13) Paracetamol, Aspirin may be used for pain relief or whatever purpose, but if it prolongs my dying process :– Not to be given to me.
(!4) Donation of my body parts – Allowed by me ( any part).
(15) Autopsy :– Not to be done on me. except as may be required by law.
(16) Disposal of Body :– Any mode that is most convenient to my family members, friends or any one else in charge of the same. Cremation, burial, or donation of entire body or parts to any Medical College/ Hospital for studies are acceptable to me.
(E) FURTHER, THE FOLLOWING DETAILS OF MY WISH SHOULD BE RESPECTED AND FOLLOWED:-
(a) Under no circumstances should I be taken to Hospital without my own consent.
(b) I ask that drugs be mercifully administered to me for terminal suffering even if they hasten the moment of death including narcotics or any other drugs to alleviate pain irrespective of the drugs’ side effects, if any, what so ever.
(c) It may be noted that I do not fear death as I fear indignity of physical deterioration, dependence and hopeless pain.
This request is made after very careful consideration on my part, as well as discussion with my spouse and two daughters and close friends.
I recognize that it places a heavy burden upon my family members, Caretakers which includes Doctors, Nurses and Friends and Relatives and well wishers. It is with the intention of sharing the said Burden & responsibility, and mitigating any feeling of guilt or fear of legal culpability that my caretakers and any or all of the above people may have, that this statement is made.
This statement consists of TWO pages and is signed by me and the two witnesses on each of two pages. All signatories have signed here in the presence of all of them on the same date and at the same place. Witnesses are persons who have nothing to gain in any manner by my death.
Tito Mathson
Name & Signature Date Place – Bangalore Spouse- Mrs Mathson…………
Witness-1 ( Name, Address & Tel No.) ( Witness-2: Name Address & Tel No.)
Sunday, November 28, 2010
"Absolute Khushwant" by Kushwant Singh
I just finished reading Khushwant Singh's new book ( published in 2010). As usual it was a delight reading him. Simple language, easy narrative, absolutely frank and free about everything....yes everything. I now getbooks home from by placing order on line and they deliver home and pick up when I ask them online. Buying books and worrying about storing them is passe`.
Sardarji covers Indian Politics and politicians,marriage,religion,Urdu language,and many other topics chapterwise. Last is an Urdu couplet which when translated reads...
You ask me what I do in life
Well, I sell mirrors inthe city of the BLIND.
The book is like an autobiography though not quite one.
Tito
Sardarji covers Indian Politics and politicians,marriage,religion,Urdu language,and many other topics chapterwise. Last is an Urdu couplet which when translated reads...
You ask me what I do in life
Well, I sell mirrors inthe city of the BLIND.
The book is like an autobiography though not quite one.
Tito
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Amma has moved to an Apartment !
September 27th 2009 will remain a day when I felt 'orphaned'.....for my Amma died that day. September 29th will be remain for ever a day to reflect over 'internment'. I had never been at the demise and Christian burial of any of my dear ones. Not my grand parents nor my father. They were buried six feet deep by the time I could arrive home, from my place of work. Bereavement, therefore meant to me that, I missed the departed dear ones and just went about wondering at the phenomenon of death as an event that made people just vanish from sight without a trace.
Amma 'moved on' rather differently. She arrived home from a hospital a hundred kilometers away in a refrigerated glass-top casket in the dark and rainy early morning of 29th September, before any one in the
village of Eraviperur was awake. She wore a 'Kasavu' sari and her head was hooded by gold brocaded sari ‘pallu’. She looked smaller than what she looked to me all her life. For nearly forty years ( ever since I left home in search of a career ), she received me at my ancestral house when I returned home year after year, with cries of joy and complaining about my arriving later than she expected. That day I did the ‘receiving’, and she was silent. And I wept.
But such arrival in casket and dressed in ‘saaree’ are not unusual. What was unusual ( for me) was the way she got interned. No six feet grave was dug, and no wet soggy soil was dumped on her body. From home to Church and from there, after prayers by a Bishop assisted by a few Priests she went to the Cemetery on our shoulders and entered her new abode.....the top left 'cabin' of the 'Shankara-Mangalam' family Vault. Volt-Number-ONE. She being the sixth occupant of the same vault. She has eight other neighbours, (vaults), in the 10 feet tall multi-storied building.
The vault's shutter was closed, by her two sons, in the presence of close family members and priests. And Amma is there sleeping just as I have seen her in her room in my ancestral home. Except that this time she is a bit over-dressed for bed-time.
This time she slept through during Christmas. First time in my life, she did that.
Today is 1st of January 2010.....and I know I can go and open the shutter and see my Amma, touch her, if I really wanted to. She will not be smiling as usual, but she will be there all the same. That is not what I could say if she were buried six feet deep in a grave.
The spirit and life-force that drove Amma, I never saw any way from the day I was born to her at her age of 20. All I saw, loved, hugged, laughed-with, ate-with, wrote letters to, talked on phone with, travelled on holidays to, and maintained my invisible umbilical cord with, for sixty years, was HER BODY. And that is still there !! No
Wonder, in the long past, bodies were preserved and kept.
I really do not know if 'spirits' continue to exist after death or 'soul' goes to heaven, or to "The Mansions" that Christ said existed. But for me Amma meant her physical form, especially her smiling face and caring hands. I am here in flesh, because she existed in flesh.
And now I live, and often saying to myself: "Amma is there in her room I can go and see her any time I want ". That is comforting for me. I will see what happens to Soul , when I become a spirit. I hope I get a vault near hers, as there are nine of them, which get occupied in turn. We will then talk about small things and laugh big time till our sides ache; like old times, till she she says usual, “ stop it son, I am going breathless with laughter”........... My Amma has moved in to an apartment.
September 27th 2009 will remain a day when I felt 'orphaned'.....for my Amma died that day. September 29th will be remain for ever a day to reflect over 'internment'. I had never been at the demise and Christian burial of any of my dear ones. Not my grand parents nor my father. They were buried six feet deep by the time I could arrive home, from my place of work. Bereavement, therefore meant to me that, I missed the departed dear ones and just went about wondering at the phenomenon of death as an event that made people just vanish from sight without a trace.
Amma 'moved on' rather differently. She arrived home from a hospital a hundred kilometers away in a refrigerated glass-top casket in the dark and rainy early morning of 29th September, before any one in the
village of Eraviperur was awake. She wore a 'Kasavu' sari and her head was hooded by gold brocaded sari ‘pallu’. She looked smaller than what she looked to me all her life. For nearly forty years ( ever since I left home in search of a career ), she received me at my ancestral house when I returned home year after year, with cries of joy and complaining about my arriving later than she expected. That day I did the ‘receiving’, and she was silent. And I wept.
But such arrival in casket and dressed in ‘saaree’ are not unusual. What was unusual ( for me) was the way she got interned. No six feet grave was dug, and no wet soggy soil was dumped on her body. From home to Church and from there, after prayers by a Bishop assisted by a few Priests she went to the Cemetery on our shoulders and entered her new abode.....the top left 'cabin' of the 'Shankara-Mangalam' family Vault. Volt-Number-ONE. She being the sixth occupant of the same vault. She has eight other neighbours, (vaults), in the 10 feet tall multi-storied building.
The vault's shutter was closed, by her two sons, in the presence of close family members and priests. And Amma is there sleeping just as I have seen her in her room in my ancestral home. Except that this time she is a bit over-dressed for bed-time.
This time she slept through during Christmas. First time in my life, she did that.
Today is 1st of January 2010.....and I know I can go and open the shutter and see my Amma, touch her, if I really wanted to. She will not be smiling as usual, but she will be there all the same. That is not what I could say if she were buried six feet deep in a grave.
The spirit and life-force that drove Amma, I never saw any way from the day I was born to her at her age of 20. All I saw, loved, hugged, laughed-with, ate-with, wrote letters to, talked on phone with, travelled on holidays to, and maintained my invisible umbilical cord with, for sixty years, was HER BODY. And that is still there !! No
Wonder, in the long past, bodies were preserved and kept.
I really do not know if 'spirits' continue to exist after death or 'soul' goes to heaven, or to "The Mansions" that Christ said existed. But for me Amma meant her physical form, especially her smiling face and caring hands. I am here in flesh, because she existed in flesh.
And now I live, and often saying to myself: "Amma is there in her room I can go and see her any time I want ". That is comforting for me. I will see what happens to Soul , when I become a spirit. I hope I get a vault near hers, as there are nine of them, which get occupied in turn. We will then talk about small things and laugh big time till our sides ache; like old times, till she she says usual, “ stop it son, I am going breathless with laughter”........... My Amma has moved in to an apartment.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Holistic Medicine--My Personal View
Personally speaking, my faith in medicine ( many streams of that ) can be summed up as follows, especially after my Bone Marrow Tranplant at Christian Medical College Hospital, Vellore, Tamil Nadu.
I have no faith at all in Homeopathy. I have tried it many times. It works mostly ( if at all) as PLACEBO. Placebo effect can be achieved (for example) by me giving my friend plain 'Maida' or 'Atta' tablets and convincing him that they are latest sure-fire drug for say sarcoidosis; and it will work to a certain degree and for some time, if he happens to have faith in me as a Doctor ( if I were one). But the effect will not last.
There is a Scientist in USA who has deposited One Million Dollars in a Bank which is available to any one in the world who proves scientifically that Homeopathy works. One of the TV channels aired a story of that some time ago, which finally concluded that about ten Homeo- Doctors who tried their best, failed to claim the PRIZE !! They just could not prove Homeopathy's efficacy.
Again, I do not believe Ayurveda has any cure for infectious diseases at all. Some ( just some) systemic diseases can have 'palliative' effect with it. No cure. My grandfather tried it for 20 years for Piles as well as for Rheumatism and I personally know that it failed miserably. Massages with Ayurvedic oils 'SEEM" to give relief due to the short term effect of the MASSAGE ITSELF ( massage improves blood circulation). The oils provide nothing but lubrication. Rubbing our skins with bare dry hands will irritate the skin as we all know; hence the oils.
Allopathy works. Yes, Allopathy has serious side effects. But in Allopathy there is this dictum of choosing the better of the TWO EVILS...that is (1) painful side effects or, (2) Death. We all know which to choose, without going to a Medical College.
Holistic medicine is a combination of all above three and some more ( including Prayer,Aroma Therapy, Crystal Therapy, Reiky, Vaasthu, meditation, Yoga, etc).
Even Vaasthu followers claim great medical wonders if we follow their advice, though Vaasthu is mainly about land and buildings and placements of furniture and so on. It is ( foolishly in my view) said to bestowe great mental abilities to even an embryo at conception. The father of, the world famous Bihari boy, who passed M.Sc Physics/Math at age 13, got the brilliant brain as per his father ( in a Televised interview),because the boy was conceived when his mother's head was in the North-East direction.
Prayer has booster effect, provided :- (1) the patient himself prays fervently with full faith, (2) his near & dear ones pray IN HIS PRESENCE, and he aware of it, (3) his friendly groups from his circles, (Church, School & College etc.) pray and he is made to know that they are sincerely praying for his recovery. Some Church members praying for the patient in some place in Timbuktu will have no effect on him. By the same logic when Reiky practitioners say their system can be effective from any distance, that is just too much to digest .
Two unrelated groups of Christian-believer-Scientists had conducted experiments about the effect of prayer on patients' condition, and proved that the patient's conscious awareness that some groups(s) are praying for him had positive booster effect on top of the effects of medicines or surgery. JUST PLAIN PRAYER WITHOUT ingesting say, Chloromycetin will not cure Typhoid. Nor fully blocked cardiac arteries, can be set right with only prayer,without bypass surgery or stent insertion done.
Holistic Medical Practioners are well meaning nice guys but the effectiveness they claim may be too tall. The simple deductive logic is that otherwise Mayo Clinics and Apollo Hospitals and CMC Vellore Hospitals of this world would not continue to exist and prosper.
Tito
Personally speaking, my faith in medicine ( many streams of that ) can be summed up as follows, especially after my Bone Marrow Tranplant at Christian Medical College Hospital, Vellore, Tamil Nadu.
I have no faith at all in Homeopathy. I have tried it many times. It works mostly ( if at all) as PLACEBO. Placebo effect can be achieved (for example) by me giving my friend plain 'Maida' or 'Atta' tablets and convincing him that they are latest sure-fire drug for say sarcoidosis; and it will work to a certain degree and for some time, if he happens to have faith in me as a Doctor ( if I were one). But the effect will not last.
There is a Scientist in USA who has deposited One Million Dollars in a Bank which is available to any one in the world who proves scientifically that Homeopathy works. One of the TV channels aired a story of that some time ago, which finally concluded that about ten Homeo- Doctors who tried their best, failed to claim the PRIZE !! They just could not prove Homeopathy's efficacy.
Again, I do not believe Ayurveda has any cure for infectious diseases at all. Some ( just some) systemic diseases can have 'palliative' effect with it. No cure. My grandfather tried it for 20 years for Piles as well as for Rheumatism and I personally know that it failed miserably. Massages with Ayurvedic oils 'SEEM" to give relief due to the short term effect of the MASSAGE ITSELF ( massage improves blood circulation). The oils provide nothing but lubrication. Rubbing our skins with bare dry hands will irritate the skin as we all know; hence the oils.
Allopathy works. Yes, Allopathy has serious side effects. But in Allopathy there is this dictum of choosing the better of the TWO EVILS...that is (1) painful side effects or, (2) Death. We all know which to choose, without going to a Medical College.
Holistic medicine is a combination of all above three and some more ( including Prayer,Aroma Therapy, Crystal Therapy, Reiky, Vaasthu, meditation, Yoga, etc).
Even Vaasthu followers claim great medical wonders if we follow their advice, though Vaasthu is mainly about land and buildings and placements of furniture and so on. It is ( foolishly in my view) said to bestowe great mental abilities to even an embryo at conception. The father of, the world famous Bihari boy, who passed M.Sc Physics/Math at age 13, got the brilliant brain as per his father ( in a Televised interview),because the boy was conceived when his mother's head was in the North-East direction.
Prayer has booster effect, provided :- (1) the patient himself prays fervently with full faith, (2) his near & dear ones pray IN HIS PRESENCE, and he aware of it, (3) his friendly groups from his circles, (Church, School & College etc.) pray and he is made to know that they are sincerely praying for his recovery. Some Church members praying for the patient in some place in Timbuktu will have no effect on him. By the same logic when Reiky practitioners say their system can be effective from any distance, that is just too much to digest .
Two unrelated groups of Christian-believer-Scientists had conducted experiments about the effect of prayer on patients' condition, and proved that the patient's conscious awareness that some groups(s) are praying for him had positive booster effect on top of the effects of medicines or surgery. JUST PLAIN PRAYER WITHOUT ingesting say, Chloromycetin will not cure Typhoid. Nor fully blocked cardiac arteries, can be set right with only prayer,without bypass surgery or stent insertion done.
Holistic Medical Practioners are well meaning nice guys but the effectiveness they claim may be too tall. The simple deductive logic is that otherwise Mayo Clinics and Apollo Hospitals and CMC Vellore Hospitals of this world would not continue to exist and prosper.
Tito
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